


a place where i can love you

by silverhedges



Series: i spend all my time in puddles. i miss the ocean. [3]
Category: Gintama
Genre: Heartbreak, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Phone Calls & Telephones, So much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-30 12:15:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12108504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverhedges/pseuds/silverhedges
Summary: Takasugi receives a phone call from Gintoki shortly after the end of the war. On the road to friendship deteriorating to hatred, Takasugi is hurt and unforgiving.





	a place where i can love you

The phone line crackles between them. Takasugi doesn’t know what’s wrong with it. He never did know, but he used to care. He used to be excited about figuring out new tools. Caring seems so distant. Takasugi has lost the ability to care about trivial amusements like that anymore. The rain lashes down outside, hitting the ground hard, like it’s making a war against the dry earth.

Gintoki’s breath is heavy. The last time Takasugi had seen him, the sun had been shining. It might have lit up his hair. He used to stare at that sight when Gintoki was distracted, but by then Takasugi couldn’t bring himself to look at Gintoki at all.

“I…” Gintoki’s voice sounds like rust. “I wanted to know how you were doing.”

His voice is deep, slightly slurring. Probably tipsy. Even despite the chasm that has opened up between them, Takasugi still remembers what Gintoki sounds like when he drinks. It’s so hard to force himself to respond.

“I’m fine,” comes his empty response. He is not fine.

“That’s great. Uh, yeah. Great. Good to know.”

Silence resumes.

It used to be so easy. Now Takasugi has no idea what to say to Gintoki. The new Gintoki, in this strange future. This goddamn hell. He wakes up these days and it’s like they all died on that cliff and this is the torture they deserve for all their crimes.

It’s so hard to communicate. Gintoki isn’t the person Takasugi thought he was for a fucking decade. I depended on you, he could say. When did you start to change, he could say. When did you become that much of a beast that you could kill the person we loved the most and think we could still be friends?

When did you become so heartless that you didn’t care about ripping my heart out?

Takasugi is so fucking tired of being the one who cares.

“Your eye,” Gintoki rasps, coughing. “Is it – will you ever see again?”

It pulses with pain.

Gintoki cried. Maybe he did care.

If Gintoki ever moves on, ever gets past this giant hurt, this unfathomable pain, this raw wound split down his chest – Takasugi will never, ever forgive him. For leaving him behind. For making Takasugi be the only one who cares, yet a-fucking-gain.

“No.” The doctors were quite clear on that. Takasugi will never be the same.

“Ah…” A sharp breath. Gintoki on the edge of tears. Takasugi will always know that. “You know,” Gintoki’s voice dark with emotion, “I can’t fucking stand seeing you in pain.”

Neither can I, is on the tip of the tongue, but Takasugi cannot make himself say it. Who is the person responsible for Takasugi’s pain? Who broke his heart? Who betrayed him?

Takasugi cannot get used to this future, to the idea that they are still alive. That they have decades of life left in them. Isn’t it torture, to live a long life with a broken heart? Isn’t it torture to be still alive when you wish you were six foot under?

Even if he lives years and years in the future, even if Takasugi becomes a person that his current self could not recognise, he would still remember Gintoki at seventeen, crying on the worst day of their lives.

“I can’t not be in pain,” he says and it comes out softer than he intended.

“Take a painkiller.”

Takasugi’s lips snarl. “Can’t you ever be fucking serious?”

“Sorry, sorry.” Gintoki clears his throat. His voice is getting muffled. “It’s just… come see sometime. I want to see you. It’s not like we’re strangers.”

“I’ll check my calendar,” Takausgi mutters. “Might be busy.”

He’s got an appointment every day for the rest of his life: wishing he was dead. Wishing Gintoki was dead. Wishing Katsura was dead. Wishing he had been able to make that choice, borne that sin, instead of watching the person he loved be in pain instead. Wishing they had all died at thirteen and didn’t have to deal with any of this at all.

He doesn’t wish for Shoyou to come back. Even Takasugi is aware of the impossible. The futility of screaming at the sky for it to come crashing down. The sunlight fades, the world spins on, Mother Nature does not care about your heartbreak. The dead remain dead.

“I’ll talk to you again, Gintoki,” he says. A promise he has no intention of fulfilling. Takasugi puts the phone down.

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from 'the Long and the Short of it' by Richard Siken. Link: http://sporkpress.com/2_1/Pieces/Siken.htm


End file.
